Portsmouth's pre-season tour lurches through a comedy of errors

DC United's Pablo Hernandez, left, battles for the ball against Portsmouth's Marlon Pack, right. The English side were forced to borrow the American side's kit after theirs went missing. Photograph: Nick Wass/AP

If Portsmouth thought that things could hardly get any worse for them after going into administration, being relegated from the Premier League and having a transfer embargo imposed upon them, they were sorely mistaken.

A disastrous pre-season tour of North America concluded yesterday with a 4-0 thrashing inflicted by DC United in which the English side had to borrow kit to clad their patchwork team of youth players and senior pros after losing their luggage during a lightning-storm affected, 27-hour journey, in which they spent much of that time in transit at an hotel near Chicago airport.

Portsmouth's two-week trip to the States has been dogged with almost farcical problems. So limited are the club's player reserves that more than half of their squad in the US had never played a first team game for the side before the tour, leaving the manager Steve Cotterill with little option but to field youth players.

Their initial journey from England to their first game in San Diego took 42 hours after a connecting flight was cancelled, leaving the squad stranded in Chicago. Then, after they had travelled to Canada – where, against Edmonton, Cotterill had a back five made up of three second-year professionals and two triallists – two players had to be sent home with injuries, including a suspected broken leg for the goalkeeper Jon Stewart.

Cotterill must have been hoping his luck would change. However his squad were then stranded in Chicago once again as a storm grounded their plane from Edmonton to Washington. When they eventually arrived for Saturday's game against DC United, they did so having had just four hours sleep and without being able to train for three days. "The time it took us to get here, we could have flown to Australia," said the furious manager.

The club's midfielder Michael Brown added: "After a cancelled plane the boys got up at three in the morning to get another plane that was then delayed which meant we got to Washington just a few hours before the game."

Worse was to come, though. During the flight, 14 of their bags went missing – including the one containing their kit. After being forced to borrow DC United's change kit, they then strode out on to the pitch to find the temperature was 38C (100F), the hottest day of the year in the the US capital so far.

"The temperature at the stadium was unbelievable," said Brown. "The lads all lost 4kgs. That tells you how hot it was. It was very humid. We came from Edmonton, where it wasn't too hot, straight to this. But, just like throughout the two weeks, we've had to deal with it."

Once on the pitch, the situation – almost unbelievably – worsened. The goalkeeper Jamie Ashdown, fighting to earn a new contract, injured himself as he collided with his team-mate Joel Ward and had to be substituted. Then, as the heat rose, tempers flared. Hayden Mullins was sent off after getting into an argument with DC United's Santino Quaranta. Quaranta himself was also dismissed after appearing to spit at Mullins, before a second player for the US team, Julius James, was also sent off in the last minute.

"I can't believe he's been allowed to officiate a game," said Cotterill of the referee. "I've never seen anything like it in my life."

The result hardly seemed important after Portsmouth's tribulations. In the event, they were sunk by a hat-trick from the Australian veteran Danny Allsopp.

"Probably that result summed up the tour for us really – it has been extremely tough," said Cotterill.

He added: "We were OK for 20 minutes against DC United, but after that we were shot. The next 70 minutes were very painful and hard for the players.

"The one thing about this result is that it's shown the position we're in. It's painful. We've got some good honest senior lads here and some youngsters who are trying their hardest. The kids have got to be at full tilt to be anywhere near the team, and we're going to be playing in a mans' league in a couple of weeks' time."